Don Jr.’s Secret Wedding Guest

Paper Trail

ProPublica reporters investigate whether Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, closely tied to Vladimir Putin, attended Donald Trump Jr.'s private

Key takeaways

• Don Jr. hosted a lavish, exclusive three-day wedding on private Bahamian islands with elite guests including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
• A Russian oligarch linked to Putin, Umar Kremlev, was reportedly present despite no official confirmation or photos of him in released media.

Main topics

• Trump family wealth
• Russian oligarchs and U.S. political figures

Notable quotes

This was, as they kept saying, an intimate affair.

Conclusion

The investigation reveals troubling gaps in transparency around elite

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) ProPublica. Investigative journalism in the public interest. Hey, listeners. A quick note. We have a special episode for you today. Yesterday, ProPublica reporters broke a pretty wild story, and we thought you'd want to hear about it ASAP. After this, we'll be back to our regular schedule, and we'll have a new episode for you in two weeks. Speaker 6 (0:31) In the absolute avalanche of stories coming out about the Trump administration this year, you might have missed a more human interest story about the Trump family. Speaker 4 (0:41) Glad to be with you guys live and in studio with my schedule these days and getting married and all that kind of craziness. This Speaker 6 (0:48) past May, the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., got married in the Bahamas. He talked about it on his podcast, Triggered. Speaker 4 (0:56) But it was really small, like... Just really close friends. Just tried to keep it really tight. Speaker 6 (1:04) In the lead up to the big day, reporters asked President Trump if he was planning to go. Speaker 1 (1:12) He'd like me to go, but it's going to be just a small little private affair. And I'm going to try and make it. I'm in the midst. I said, you know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things. Speaker 6 (1:25) President Trump did not end up going to the wedding. But a team of my colleagues at ProPublica have gone super deep on this event. Speaker 2 (1:36) This is wedding number two for Don Jr. with Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson. It was a three-day event across this pair of islands. Again, these are very luxurious private islands that celebrities have rented out. One of them was featured in the James Bond film Casino Royale. Bahamas is beautiful, obviously. You know, the cerulean Speaker 3 (1:59) water, Speaker 2 (2:01) the white sandy beaches. People... Flew in on helicopters, seaplanes. There was no paparazzi there. It was all very private. Speaker 3 (2:11) This was, as they kept saying, an intimate affair. Speaker 2 (2:14) Don Jr. had very old friends who were disappointed not to be invited. There was a fireworks display from a barge. There was apparently an illusionist. Dancers in sailor outfits. They had two cakes from their favorite bakery in South Florida brought in via plane boat. and I think golf cart, including a five-tier funfetti cake. People dancing, Speaker 3 (2:37) wearing linen on the water. It was quite captivating as like a scene. Speaker 6 (2:44) Why, you might ask, are two investigative journalists for ProPublica talking like wedding correspondents for People magazine? Speaker 3 (2:52) My name's Brett Murphy. My name's Justin Elliott. We're both very bald, and we... Communicate telepathically. Speaker 6 (3:00) The reason they became so interested in these nuptials began late last year, when ProPublica decided to start investigating Don Jr.'s personal wealth. Speaker 2 (3:10) Forbes magazine last December estimated that his net worth had gone from $50 million before the election to $300 million about a year into the second term. This whole sort of... economy, we've been calling it the Don Jr. economy, has sprung up around him since the start of his father's second term. And so we started poking around. Speaker 6 (3:34) Justin wanted to know, did any of that money come from trading on his access to the president? Speaker 2 (3:41) Even though he does not hold a government role, there's a lot of evidence that he's incredibly influential in the Trump administration. He's doing an awful lot of travel around the world, meeting with businessmen, sometimes foreign leaders. And, you know, I think a lot of these trips, it's probably not more than meets the eye, but some of them actually were quite interesting. Speaker 3 (4:04) Justin and I became interested in this press release we saw from Istanbul. Speaker 2 (4:10) This organization we'd never heard of called the International Boxing Association had put out a press release saying, you know, we were proud to host Don Trump Jr. at a panel discussion in Istanbul, Turkey, about boxing. Speaker 4 (4:26) I really love what Umar is doing to just make sure there's actual fairness. No nonsense. It's Speaker 2 (4:33) like chairs on a stage, and it's like five people. One of Muhammad Ali's daughters, Manny Pacquiao, a few other people, and Donald Trump Jr. Is Don Jr. a boxer? He's not a boxer. I think Don Jr. identifies as a boxing fan. Speaker 4 (4:50) Boxing for me growing up was such an important thing, those great Saturday night fights. I mean, I loved every minute of it, was so passionate about it. Speaker 2 (5:00) He's not a sought-after boxing commentator as far as we've been able to tell. It seemed very random and weird. What stuck out to us is that Juan Jr. did not have an obvious connection to the boxing world. And then the host of it was the head of this boxing organization. This Russian guy that we'd never heard of named Umar Kremlin. This guy is a Russian oligarch. If you like Google image search him, like what comes up is him at boxing fights, but also there's pictures of him with Putin. Speaker 3 (5:33) Turns out he is actually quite close with the Kremlin, quite close with Vladimir Putin. himself. So we were like, this is Speaker 2 (5:40) kind of interesting. This guy seems like a potentially significant figure. So we want to know, is there more Speaker 3 (5:44) to their relationship? Was it just a one-time thing where Junior sat on this panel and then these two never saw each other again? Or Speaker 2 (5:52) is there more? Obviously, you know, Trump-Russia, Trump-Junior-Russia is something that has a long history. Speaker 6 (5:59) Yeah, that's pretty noteworthy. Speaker 2 (6:00) People may or may not remember there was this famous so-called Trump Tower meeting. With Trump Jr. and some others, there was a famous email exchange in which somebody emailed Trump Jr. saying they had dirt on Hillary and they wanted to give it to them. And this was part of the Russian government's support for Trump. And Donald Trump Jr. famously responded, I love it, especially if it's later in the summer. So, yes, that was in the back of our minds of wondering what was going on here. But we were poking around on it. And, you know, at a certain point in this. We heard that this Russian oligarch, Umar Kremlev, not only had he hosted Don Jr. at this panel in Istanbul, but we heard that he might have actually attended his wedding. And that's when we were like, this is getting kind of interesting. Speaker 2 (6:53) It was a little crazy because it was so strange. My first thought was like, OK, so Don Jr.'s father didn't attend the wedding, but this Russian oligarch did. Like, is that really possible? Like, that would be very strange. The Speaker 3 (7:05) Russian oligarch, who is personally